Month: July 2016

The usual character of human testimony

The usual character of human testimony is substantial truth under circumstantial variety. This is what the daily experiences of courts of justice teaches. When accounts of a transaction come from the mouths of different witnesses, it is seldom that it is not possible to pick out apparent or real inconsistencies between them. These inconsistencies are studiously displayed by an adverse pleader, but oftentimes with little impression upon the minds of the judges.

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The principle of credulity

[I]n general it may be affirmed, that the credulity of the ignorant operates under the control of their strongest passions and impressions, and that no class of society yield a slower assent to positions, which manifestly subvert their old modes of thinking and most settled prejudices. It is then very unphilosophical to assume this principle as an explanation of all miracles whatever.

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No double standards

About the end of the second century, the Gospels were reverenced as sacred books by a community dispersed over the world, composed of men of different nations and languages. There were, to say the least, sixty thousand copies of them in existence; they were read in the churches of Christians; they were continually quoted, and appealed to, as of the highest authority; their reputation was as well established among believers, from one end of the Roman empire to the other, as it is at the present day among Christians in any country. …

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A general indisposition towards believing

A motive, however stronger in itself than another, may yet make a weaker impression, when employed, after that the motive of less, tho’ sufficient, strength hath already been resisted. For the mind doth, by every degree of affected unbelief, contract more and more of a general indisposition towards believing: …

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